


Ever After

by Pollydoodles



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-22 21:14:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8301325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pollydoodles/pseuds/Pollydoodles
Summary: When Bucky prevents little Darcy Lewis from breaking a limb or two as she falls down the stairs, he's unprepared for what the bump on her head that he was unable to stop will bring them both.





	

Bucky Barnes was quite happy keeping himself to himself, thanks all the same.  
He had Steve, and to an extent he had Natasha - although it was slightly more accurate to say that Natasha had him, and he had little apparent control in the matter of that - and it was also true that he had Sam, and the less said about that by the pair of them, the better.  
The point being, that he was not interested in making any more friends, already considering that he had a surplus of two as it was.  
And that fact made it all the more difficult when Darcy Lewis took a head first tumble down the stairs, the top-heavy pile of folders she’d been precariously holding scattering about her like confetti as she fell, and he caught her at the bottom.

He hadn’t intended to, and he would stick by that story for years to come, but had been crossing the foyer to the tower with Natasha, stalking across the marble flooring toward the elevator when from the corner of his eye he caught the flash of falling limbs.  
The little brunette hit most every step on the way down before Bucky slid to his knees in front of the girl as she fell, and put his chest between her and the large expanse of marble floor in the foyer of the Avengers tower. The folders thudded around them, papers flying, and one particularly large lever-arch file slamming against the floor just inches from the girl’s head, its contents spilling forth in a mess of dog-eared paperwork.  
Bucky instinctively jerked her towards him, away from the folder, and he felt rather than saw Natasha giving him a look as he did so. He did not look at the redhead but instead down at the girl now cradled in his arms, whose eyes were closed and a small trickle of blood trailing across her pale forehead.  
He grunted, standing in one movement and keeping her close to his chest, moving easily with the girl in his arms. Turning, he came face to face with Natasha, who raised an eyebrow.  
“Making friends, Barnes?” She said, barely concealing a smile. “There are easier ways.”  
He shot her an unimpressed look.  
“Funny,” he answered, shifting the girl in his arms up with one knee, and looking down at her. She lolled in his arms, pliant and unresponsive. Bucky frowned, then glanced back at Natasha. “She needs a doctor,” he said plainly, and his companion nodded in agreement.

“I don’t know her,” Bucky said frankly as he announced their presence, standing in the doorway to the med bay with the unconscious girl still in his arms. Dr. Cho looked from him to Natasha, stood a pace or so behind him, and back again.  
“He really doesn’t,” the redhead said, stepping around him and hopping up neatly onto the nearest desk.  
“Isn’t she Foster’s intern?” Dr. Cho asked, stepping closer toward Bucky and peering down at the girl. He looked over to Natasha, assuming – correctly – that she would know the answer. The other woman nodded, tilting her head to one side as she observed the scene playing out in front of her with a secretive smile.

Bucky glared at her, the little brunette still clutched close to him.

“Can you just lay her down here?” Cho said, indicating the gurney in the middle of the room. Bucky gently moved the girl toward the trolley, aiming on slipping his arm out from under her head carefully, followed by his metal arm from the crook of her knees. The brunette stirred slightly, a low moan coming from her, and he took an alarmed step back, still holding her.

Bucky could deal with taking an unconscious girl to the medical floor, he was less sure that he wanted to stick around for her to wake up. Natasha swung her heels, still perched on the counter opposite.

“Uh, doc?” He asked, glancing over at the other woman, who was busying herself at the medical station. A small hand reached out and grasped at his wrist where his arm was curled around her legs, bringing his attention back to the petite girl in his arms. She’d grabbed at his metal wrist, and the sensors within it were going haywire, unused to human touch other than his own when he was doing maintenance.

“Are you…” The girl blinked slowly, blue eyes widening and then focusing on him. She broke into a smile and Bucky looked at her with some concern. No one smiled at him. Not even Steve, not really. She’d definitely sustained a worse blow to the head than he had previously assumed.  
“Are you my Prince Charming?”  
Bucky blinked. 

Natasha leaned forward from where she was sat.  
“Excuse me?”  
“I’ve been waiting for my prince to arrive, you see,” she said, blinking up at him with a slow smile, apparently unconcerned with his blunt response. “And you’ve rescued me, so-”  
“No,” Bucky said quickly. “I’ve absolutely not rescued you.” The girl looked at him, then at his arms, still cradling her to his chest, and he practically dropped her in his haste to rectify that. Natasha looked as though she was torn between dying of laughter and filming the damn situation.

Dr. Cho thankfully turned back at that point, bidding him to place the girl – Darcy, his brain forced him to remember – onto the gurney. Bucky stood back slightly as the doctor checked the girl over, pressing a stethoscope to her chest, shining a light in her eyes and finally gently wiping away the trickle of blood on her forehead.

The doctor ran through a few questions, nodding slightly at some responses and frowning a little at one or two others. Bucky stood, shifting awkwardly from one foot to the other until she had finished the examination.

“She’s generally fine,” Cho said, snapping the latex gloves off her hands and turning to him as she spoke. Bucky wondered why on earth the woman was looking to him, as though he were responsible for the little brunette now gingerly sitting up on the trolley in front of him. “However-“

“You are my knight in shining armour, aren’t you?” The girl asked, huge blue eyes staring up at him with the sort of innocence he wasn’t sure he’d ever been the focus of, even before the war and the way that HYDRA had gotten their claws into him. Bucky gaped at the brunette, then spun on his heel to face the doctor, an expression of deep accusation painted across his features.

“What the hell is this?” Bucky demanded, pointing at the girl on the bed. The doctor sighed.

“It’s relatively normal, in cases where there’s been some head trauma, even mildly so,” Cho said, turning her back to him and noting some details down on a chart in slanting cursive as she spoke. She seemed, Bucky thought to himself, decidedly unconcerned with the whole matter, which he found unacceptable. “She appears to believe that she’s a princess, and you would be her… Rescuer.”

The doctor shrugged.

“That’s not normal,” Bucky said flatly.

“I assure you, it is,” Cho responded without looking at him, making another note on her little chart, and Natasha – whom Bucky had forgotten was there – grinned like a cat who’d just consumed a cream covered canary and had some sort of canary based dessert to look forward to as well. He just about resisted the urge to flip her an entirely different sort of bird, until his attention was captured once more by the girl in front of him.

“Is this where we kiss?” She asked, gazing up at him.

“What?” He responded, alarmed, and took several steps backward until he found himself pressed up awkwardly against a stainless steel countertop littered with surgical instruments. The metal rattled under his weight, the instruments shaking a little as he bounced next to it. Bucky threw them a concerned look, then took a half pace away from it.

Natasha's mouth twisted in a way that let him know she really, really wanted to laugh.

“No,” he said firmly, to the girl who’d slipped off the gurney and was looking at him with something like an expectant gaze in her eye. “Absolutely not.”

“Spoilsport,” Natasha murmured from the other side of the room, and he shot her a murderous look. Bucky turned his attention back to the brunette in front of him – Darcy, his mind helpfully corrected again, as he looked at her – and he put his hands out to stop her from moving any closer.

“Look, kid,” Bucky began carefully, one hand on either of her shoulders. “I just wanted to make sure your brains didn’t decorate the foyer floor, okay? That’s all this is.”

The girl peered up at him, blue eyes framed by long dark lashes, and offered him a hopeful smile. Bucky stared at her. He couldn’t remember when last anyone - save Steve, who’d always been a fool who thought too much of him, even before the war - had looked at him like that. He shook his head and backed up, away from her. 

Darcy reached out a hand, and he was gone - through the open door and away. 

\-------

“You're not trying to tell me someone actually thinks that this dude-” Sam choked out, perched on the edge of couch and jerked a hand toward Bucky as he spoke, incredulous look painted across his face. “-is a handsome prince?”  
Bucky glowered at him. He'd only intended to tell Steve, having managed to extricate himself from the girl - Darcy, Natasha had helpfully reminded him as he strode down the corridor in front of her - but Steve was, as ever, hanging out in the kitchen common area.  
“I mean, clearly if he’s any fairy tale character, he's the ogre,” Sam snorted, and took a long sip of his milkshake. Bucky rolled his eyes and thought about how little effort it would take to step forward and tap upwards on the bottom of the bottle, just a certain amount of force with his left hand and Wilson covered in sticky strawberry liquid.   
“To be honest, I always saw you more as the damsel in distress,” Steve said under his breath, grinning, and Bucky thumped him hard in the shoulder.

“Please,” Tony said, scoffing lightly from the other side of the breakfast counter. “Barnes is the Billy Goat Gruff and no mistake.”

“That make you the troll sat under the bridge, Stark?” Bucky demanded, leaning over the counter toward the other man and making a grab for his shirt front. Stark’s coffee slopped wildly in his mug as Bucky jerked him forward, splattering over the hardwood. “Reckon I can see my way to tippety-tapping my feet all over your head, if that’s the shoe you think fits.”

“All right-” Steve said warningly, laying a hand on Bucky’s arm and squeezing. The dark haired man glared at Stark, but released his hold on the other man’s shirt and let him drop. Tony, to his credit, looked singularly unruffled by the whole situation but then again it wasn’t an entirely uncommon occurrence. 

“M’not some fairy prince,” Bucky grumbled to Steve, mostly under his breath but distinct enough that Steve's enhanced hearing could pick it up. He folded his arms across his chest and dropped his head, dark shaggy hair falling forward over eyes that held a storm within them. Steve knew the signs. 

“None of us are, Buck,” Steve answered quietly, turning to his friend and sliding a new mug of steaming hot coffee across the counter with one hand. Stark, perhaps wisely, had retreated from the kitchen. “We’re just people tryin’ to do the right thing.”

Bucky sighed heavily, staring down into the mug as he held it in his left hand, watching with disinterest as the metal steamed and cooled with his fingers wrapped around the ceramic. 

“Can't even feel that,” he said, staring at his fingers. Steve shifted next to him, unsure what to say. Bucky's metal arm was something of a conundrum. Delicate enough to function with the precise coordination he needed for sniper work, yet missing some of the more human aspects. Heat, for example, was a mystery to him. 

“She called me her knight in shining armour,” Bucky snorted, before taking a long drag of coffee that drained half the cup in one go. “M’not even a regular nice person for fucks sake.”

“Hey,” Steve said, bumping him gently with one shoulder, getting Bucky to turn his head and look at him. “You weren't even a regular nice person before the war. So you can't go wallowing in self pity about that, pal. S’just the way you were brought into this world.”

“Asshole,” Bucky muttered, raising the mug to his mouth again, but he was sporting a half smile as he said it. 

\-------

“Just go and visit her, Buck,” Steve said, peering over the top of his newspaper at the other man. He’d managed to hold it in for the rest of the day, the evening that followed and was only just now, at breakfast in their shared apartment, cautiously broaching the subject again. 

“She did take a nasty knock to the head. I’m sure she’d appreciate you checking on her.”

“She thinks I’m her goddamn rescuer, Steve,” Bucky said flatly, slamming the fridge door and turning around, milk carton in hand. He scored the top open carefully with one metal finger, then tipped his head back and the carton with it, throat working solidly as he downed the milk almost in one. 

“Well,” Steve said, refocusing on his newspaper and working hard to control the twitch that had started up in his left eye as Bucky drank. “You did rescue her. So she’s not actually wrong.”

“If I go see her, will you quit naggin’ at me?” Bucky asked, one hand on his hip and the back of the other wiping across his mouth. From behind the newspaper, Steve shrugged nonchalantly in response, one eye trained on the other man surreptitiously. Bucky rolled his eyes. 

“Fine,” he said shortly. “But only so’s it’ll get you off my back.”

“Great,” Steve said cheerfully, turning the page. “You can pick up some more milk whilst you’re at it.”

\--------

Bucky, mumbling to himself under his breath, made his way to the labs. For some godforsaken reason, they were the very bottom-most level, through more sliding glass doors than he’d ever seen before in his life. He finally made it to the one that had the words “Jane Foster” emblazoned across the door in bright gold lettering, and pushed it open cautiously. 

The lab appeared empty, and a small spark of relief shot through Bucky. He’d be able to legitimately tell Steve that he’d tried and the girl was nowhere to be found. All he had to do now was swing by the market and grab some more milk-

“Hi,” Darcy said, from the floor, and Bucky jumped. 

“What the-”

He turned around and dropped his eyes, finding the little brunette on her hands and knees. She had a scouring pad in one hand and a half-full bucket of soapy water at her side. Bucky took a step back, toward the door. 

The girl sat back on her folded legs, wiping a forearm across her head and leaving a soapy marl trailed across her pale skin. Her hair, dark and long, tumbled across her shoulders and Bucky noticed that she’d managed to accidentally dip the ends of it into the bucket of suds. The wet strands left marks across her t-shirt where her hair lay over it. 

“Are you here to see me?” Darcy asked brightly, gazing up at him and still with a soapy smudge across her forehead. 

Bucky swallowed hard, and took another step back. Steve’s face, with his patented look of disappointment flashed across Bucky’s mind. He thought, sometimes, that that expression was the most enduring memory he had. For everything he’d forgotten, had lost over the decades, that look was still scored onto his brain like a brand burned into it. 

“Just thought I’d see how you were doing,” he mumbled, looking at his feet. “With that bump on the head and all.” Darcy beamed back up at him and he tried studiously not to notice that, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other as the girl stared upwards. She was looking at him like he was come kind of hero, damn it, and that wasn’t right at all. 

Darcy scrambled to her feet, still beaming, and Bucky shot a reluctant look at her.

“You want a gingerbread man?” She asked, taking a step toward him. He took another step back and found himself pressed up against the glass door. 

“Uh-” he said, eloquently. 

“Go on,” she wheedled, holding one out to him from the pile on a floral plate sat on the desk next to her. Its royal blue icing face was lopsided. “They’re from the scientist next door. She’s positively ancient and more than a bit crotchety, but she sure knows her way around an oven.”

Bucky took it, hesitant, the tips of his fingers brushing over hers as he pulled it gently from her grasp. Biting into the soft cake, it occurred to him that he really couldn’t attest to whether he’d ever eaten gingerbread before. Another slice of memory lost to the sands of time. 

“Good, huh?” Darcy said, head tilted to one side and letting her dark curls cover her shoulder. Bucky was struck, looking at her, by how pale her skin was, how dark her hair. And, though he chased the thought from his mind about as soon as it had slunk across it, how red her lips were. 

He nodded slowly in response, chewing on the gingerbread, two large bites in and only the gingerbread man’s legs still held in his hand.

“She’s kind of a witch at times, but it’s damn good gingerbread,” Darcy mused, chewing on her own piece slowly. 

“So you clean floors?” Bucky asked bluntly, and his internal Steve winced at his total lack of conversational skills. The brunette paused as she looked at him, one hand clutching at what remained of her gingerbread man - most of his torso and one leg - stilling on its way to her mouth. Her head tilted as she looked at him, and Bucky thought she might very well slap him. 

Darcy laughed. 

“Sometimes,” she said, giggling, apparently unswayed by his social ineptitude. “When the occasion calls for it. Mainly I run around after the scientists and make sure they’re not ending the world or anything.” Bucky nodded absently, swallowing down the last of the gingerbread man and wishing he had something to wash it down with. 

“It’s kinda like what you do, right?” Darcy asked, tentatively, and Bucky realised she had positively huge blue eyes. He knew this, because they were fixed on him as she asked her question, and he felt as though he were being put under a spotlight. He swallowed again, dry and uncomfortable. 

“Not really, no,” He said shortly, and looked away. Didn’t the girl know? Hadn’t she heard? Read a goddamn newspaper, or a history book? James Buchanan Barnes was a killer, not a saint. Saving the world was Steve’s remit. Bucky just tried to keep out of the way. 

“You made sure my world didn’t end,” The girl offered, with a shy smile accompanying her words. Bucky suddenly felt hot, and as though his clothes were a little too tight. He found his breath harder to catch in his throat. He just about resisted the urge to pull at his collar like a cartoon, begging for fresh air, but it was a close call. 

“I need to go.”

He didn’t look behind him as he twisted and hauled the door open, but his reflexes - unnaturally honed and enhanced - caught the look on her face in the reflection of the door handle as he yanked at it. Darcy Lewis was looking at him with something that the James Barnes of 1917 might have understood as fondness, and he sure as shit couldn’t handle that. 

\--------

“What's your problem, Buck?” Steve asked, when the other man reappeared, slinging a carrier bag full of milk more or less at Steve’s head before disappearing into his bedroom. Steve blinked, and had the good grace to extract the milk and put it in the fridge before following his friend. 

He pushed open the door and rested his shoulder against the doorframe, arms folded across the broad expanse of his chest with his half finished coffee nestled in the crook of one arm, and waited for the other man to answer. Bucky, for his part, was spread-eagled on his bed, arms slung over his face and shielding his eyes from Steve. 

“She thinks I'm something I'm not, Steve,” Bucky said shortly. “Even if she'd not nearly cracked her head open on every stair on the way to the foyer, that ain't me and we all know it.”

“Maybe she's seeing something you can't, pal,” Steve offered quietly, after a pause. He remained in the doorway, not attempting to venture any closer. Bucky snorted.

“Sure is,” he said, shaking his head, arms still flung over his face. “Stars, mainly.” Steve opened his mouth to say that, actually, as far as he understood it, Darcy Lewis saw stars on a daily basis and this wasn’t anything like that, but Bucky continued on regardless. 

“Look, I know you think it's funny, but I can't deal with-” he gestured wildly. “-whatever all that is. Number one, the kid hurt herself. S’not like she saw me before.”

“No one saw you before, Buck,” Steve pointed out mildly, taking a sip of his coffee. “You wouldn't let ‘em, all shut up in your-”

“God help you Rogers if you say tower,” the dark haired man said, pointing a finger threateningly at his friend from the bed. Steve rolled his eyes.

“I was gonna say mind, actually,” he answered, raising an eyebrow. “However, if the metaphor fits, I'll use it.” Bucky made a rude noise and turned over, away from Steve. The blond sighed heavily, and didn’t bother to temper the motion. Bucky ought to hear that Steve thought he was being an idiot. 

“You can't keep hiding yourself away from everyone.”

“Don't see why not,” Bucky said mutinously, thumping his head into the pillow and still keeping his body turned away from the other man. “S’better, anyway.”

“I don't know if you think you're protecting people, but it's not better for you.” Steve said quietly, and turned back from the room, shutting the door after him as he went. He’d known Bucky far too long, and the other man needed to stew before any sense might be gotten out of the situation. 

Steve wandered back toward the kitchen, and hauled the fridge door open again. Aside from the milk that Bucky had so begrudgingly brought back, there wasn’t a whole lot of options on its shelves. Steve sighed and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

“Maybe he'd benefit from a knock to the head?” Natasha suggested, and Steve spun on his heel to face her. He'd long since given up being surprised to find the woman standing behind him at any given point. 

“His head’s too thick for that,” Steve grumbled to himself. Natasha hopped up onto the kitchen island with one graceful movement, and inspected her nails idly. 

“Ah, I've worked with thicker,” she said, a cat like smile curling across her mouth as she spoke. 

\-------

“Uh-” 

Bucky looked up and started as he opened the changing room door into the corridor, towel slung around his shoulders and damp hair plastered over his face. The little brunette stood in front of him, smiling broadly and shoving forward a paper cup. He reeled back slightly and hit Steve’s chest, trying to exit behind him. 

“C’mon, Buck, what’s the hold up,” Steve grumbled, shoving at his friend. “What are ya- oh.” He pulled up short as well, and then his face split into a wide grin as he looked down at the girl in front of them. She smiled back even more, and Bucky looked for an escape route as Steve nudged him in the ribs with an elbow. 

“It’s a pumpkin spiced latte,” she said, offering it up further and Bucky shot Steve an agonised look. The other man clapped him hard on the shoulder, winked and scarpered, towelling off his own shower-damp hair as he walked away. Bucky grimaced after him and made a mental note not to ease off in the next gym session. 

“Is it now,” Bucky said, resigning himself to his fate and looking back down at her. She nodded, excitedly and he took it from her. The girl watched him, practically bouncing on her toes as he raised the cup to his mouth and took a cautious sip. It was better than he had been expecting. 

Darcy - Lewis, he corrected himself, a mental slap administered as a sharp reminder for him not to get too close - fell into step with him as he walked down the corridor. His towel still slung about his shoulders and the material of his vest sticking to his back slightly where he was still a little damp from the shower, Bucky get his eyes on the floor. 

“So, I was thinking that maybe we could-”

“Listen, kid,” Bucky said, stopping abruptly and looking down at her. He realised that the movement had become uncomfortably familiar, and didn’t know how to deal with that thought. He took in a shuddering breath that he sincerely hoped the girl wouldn’t pick up on. The next words tumbled out of him without thinking. 

“I don’t know what you think this is, but I don’t care, because I don’t want any part of it. I’m not your friend, I’m certainly not your prince, and I’m leaving now.”

Darcy’s lip wobbled minutely, and he forced himself not to look at her properly, instead keeping his gaze just slightly off centre. It didn't however stop him from noticing a shine to her eyes that suggested strongly a glaze of tears had collected there. 

Bucky turned his back on her and walked away. 

\--------

Darcy was stood in the foyer, arms wrapped around herself and hugging her coat closer to her. Bucky had looked down at her, his jaw set and eyes shut off, and then he had left. As he had said he was going to. 

She bit down on her lip to stave off the flash of heat that burned across her cheeks. This was not the fairytale she thought she should be living, and she couldn't fit it right in her head.

“My, my,” came a voice from behind her, and she sniffed, turning just a touch on her heel and looking up into ice-blue eyes and a mouthful of teeth that glinted back at her. Darcy reeled back in alarm. “What big eyes you have.”

\--------

“Where’s Lewis?”

“I thought she was with you?”

“No, she-” Bucky broke off, taking a step back and thinking hard. He ran a hand over the stubble that graced his chin, a more than five o’clock shadow he’d not been bothered to take care of for a couple of days. “I left her in the foyer,” he said quietly, blue eyes turning steel and looking across to the big blond in front of him. 

Thor stiffened. “When?” He demanded. 

“Half hour, maybe more,” Bucky answered, feeling certain compartments of his mind that he kept under lock and key most of the time sliding open with alarming ease. He felt the shadow of Winter settle over him as his mind shut down, shutters slamming down over what little humanity he had rattling around inside him. 

The soldier thought. 

The soldier calculated the number of steps he’d taken since he’d left the girl in the foyer, the strange glint in her eyes and a set to her shoulders that the part of him he’d not quite managed to shove away felt sick at remembering. The soldier posited that, allowing for the time the elevator had taken between floors, the length of his own stride and the moments lost on using the swipe card on doorways, it had been precisely 32 minutes and 24 seconds since he’d exited the foyer area. 

Thor grabbed at his arm, his large hand encircling Bucky’s left bicep as though it were nothing. The soldier blinked away and Bucky looked up at the other man, who was a breath away from growling at him. 

“Think harder, friend,” Thor snapped. 

Bucky forced himself to inhale before answering, as he’d stiffened under Thor’s grip and instantly watched as his other self threw the man across the room and through the glass windows into the atrium. He closed his eyes briefly and opened them again, looking up at the huge blond and nodding slightly. 

“Just over half an hour,” he said hoarsely. “In the foyer. I - I don’t know where she was planning on going after that, but I assume she didn’t go there,” he finished and Thor shook his head grimly. 

“No, she did not.”

Thor released Bucky’s arm and swept through the door, hauling it open impatiently and letting it crash against the wall, leaving a door handle imprint in the plasterboard. Bucky strode after him, rolling his left shoulder instinctively and feeling the plates shift along it with a smooth vibration. 

\--------

They found a shoe, a single shoe, discarded on the marble floor. 

Thor frowned, looking down at it, and Bucky could find nothing remotely like the right words to say as he too stared down at the single black heel lying innocuously on the floor. 

The CCTV cameras showed Darcy turning toward a stranger, a big man who loomed over her and gave a wolfish smile as he did so, the corners of his mouth lifting it into something more like a sneer when the fuzzy black and white figure of the girl on the television screen looked away from him over her shoulder for a moment. 

Bucky set his teeth and turned away, not needing to see any more. 

“You know this man?” Thor demanding, looking up from where he had one large hand on the top of the monitor, watching Bucky advance toward the revolving door. 

“Yeah,” came the short reply. “And I know where he’s taken her, too.”

\---------

Darcy awoke, groaning and sluggish, head thumping from the inside out. A nasty, vile taste stung across her mouth and she gagged on it, turning her head to the side and spitting furiously. It did nothing to help. She tried to move her hand, to wipe the spittle from her lower lip, to rub at her throbbing temple, and could not. 

The air around her was cold, and she knew without looking that it was dark, that time had passed for Darcy Lewis without her being aware of it - and that, along with the bitter taste that burned over her tongue, told her that she’d been drugged into a dreamless sleep. 

Taken. 

She blinked, eyes hurting as she rolled them side to side, her dark hair tangled and messy as it hung over her face and she couldn’t deal with that either, not with her hands securely fastened behind her back. Darcy whimpered, struggling, and a sharp bark of a laugh cut across the room. 

Darcy’s head jerked up, and she managed to focus on the figure in front of her. 

“They call me the White Wolf,” the man said lazily, sat across from her and sprawled over the chair he was in as though it were a throne, and not some broken backed old dining room chair that had seen significantly better days. He had an accent that coloured his words, and if she was pressed she’d guess at him hailing from some Eastern European country; which she could not say. 

Darcy sat mute in her own chair, hands lashed behind her awkwardly and the rope cutting into the soft skin of her wrists. She could feel the ache in her bones at them being forced into such an unnatural position for so long, and the rough scrape of the rope over her wrists had rubbed them red raw. 

Her feet too, were bound, and bare, soles blackened from the dirt and grime of the warehouse floor. She took in a shuddering breath and the man laughed, sitting forward to gaze at her and resting his hands on his knees as his legs spread. Ice blue eyes bored into her as though he were stripping not only the dress from her body, but the skin from her very bones. 

\--------

“Steve’s bike’s gone-”

Bucky swore hard, both in Russian and a considerable amount of frustration. He kicked out at the garage door, leaving a sizable foot shaped dent in it. Thor watched him, arms folded over his expansive chest, his cloak flapping around him in the wind. 

“Then we get creative,” he said, turning on his heel and striding away. 

“And by that you mean…?” Bucky called after him, brow knitting together. He did not get an answer. 

\---------

“Do you know what I’m going to do to you, little one?” He breathed, sliding a knife from a sheath strapped to his thigh and running an index finger slowly across the edge of the blade. It caught in the moonlight, and Darcy unwittingly glanced up at the broken skylight, the moon full in the sky and illuminating them both. 

“I’m going to eat you,” he said hungrily, eyes roving over her as though he were already choosing the bits he wanted first. “I’m going to taste that pure flesh of yours and when I’m done they can have what’s left of you all wrapped up in a pretty red bow. I’ll hand deliver it to Yasha and he’ll know it was me.”

He breathed the last words and Darcy blinked away the hot flush of tears that rushed to her eyes. The Wolf’s face glinted in the bright light and his teeth bared like an animal. She shivered under her bonds, and prayed to a God she hadn’t thought she’d believed in since before Jane opened the sky and Thor fell out of it. 

\---------

“We need this chariot-” Thor announced, hauling the surprised man out of the front seat, one large hand wrapped around the man’s elbow. Bucky sighed loudly behind him. 

“It’s a carriage, Thor,” he said, as the huge blond clambered up into the front seat and took up the reins, the horses lashed to it throwing their heads in the air and jangling their bridles. “And those are paying customers,” he noted, gesturing with his head to the terrified couple sat under a blanket in the back seat. 

“Go now,” Thor said, shifting in his seat and glaring at the pair. The redheaded man nodded fervently and pulled with ineffectual and shaking hands at the door. Bucky stepped forward and flipped open the latch and the man practically fell out of it, his girlfriend tumbling after him. 

“Really?” Bucky asked drily as he settled himself in next to the other man. 

“You want to find Darcy or not?” 

\---------

“What do you think you taste like, little princess?” the man whispered, rolling the words over his tongue as he eased himself out of the chair and walked toward her, gait slow and predatory. His eyes shone in the pale moonlight, so light a blue they looked almost white to her. Darcy strained away from him as he dropped to his knees at her side, one hand on her thigh and the other laid across the chairback. 

He grinned, forcing himself up into her space even as she struggled away from him, hot breath ghosting across her face and then his tongue - wet, vile - lapping a thick stripe from her chin to her temple. 

Darcy closed her eyes. 

“Look at me when I’m talking to you-” he snarled, and backhanded her, hard. Darcy cried out, seeing stars as the world shook around her, the strength of his hand against her face stinging fresh, hot tears that threatened to burst down her cheeks. 

\---------

“What’s this?” Bucky said blankly as Thor thrust something at him. He fumbled at it and brought it up to his face. “An axe?” He asked, staring at the other man. “Am I going to chop wood to get Lewis back?”

“Can you not wield it?” Thor asked, turning back to Bucky impatiently, his red cloak caught by the wind and whipping around him. His long blond hair snapped around his face as he stared down at the other man, and Bucky thought to himself that it was the first time he’d really seen Thor as otherworldly. 

“‘Course I can,” he grunted, and shoved past him, twisting the axe in his hand so that it rotated quickly and came up straight again, the blunt edge of it flashing as it moved. Behind him, Thor nodded approvingly. 

\-------

Bucky growled, low in his throat, as Thor kicked the door down and they could see the White Wolf knelt at Darcy’s side. He was across the room before he’d paused to think about it, Thor a beat or so behind him as he moved. The other man had just enough time to twist his body toward the advancing soldier, who bore down on him like an avenging angel. 

The White Wolf looked up at him, and then to the axe that Bucky clutched in his hand. 

“What’s that?” 

“Stroke of midnight, pal,” Bucky grunted, and flipped the axe so that he held the blade in his hand, swinging it hard and fast so that the broad wooden handle smacked across the other man;s temple. He went down like stone dropping, hitting the floor with a thud that echoed. His head bounced on the concrete and Darcy scrunched her eyes up as a trickle of blood quickly became a pool around his pale head. 

Ice-blue eyes stared on, seeing nothing. 

The girl’s eyes were still squeezed shut as Bucky dropped to one knee and deftly untied her, putting his arms around her as she fell forward onto him. He ran a hand up her back and pulled her flush against him, letting her head drop into his shoulder. 

“You’re alright, it’s alright,” he murmured, into her hair. He could feel her trembling against him, and wrapped his arms tighter around her small frame. “I need you to listen to me, okay?” Bucky pulled back slightly and held Darcy up, watched as she nodded slowly, eyes red rimmed and cheeks flushed. “Did he hurt you?”

“He… He hit me, hit my head” she offered quietly. “And the rope hurt, but other than that-” Darcy broke off as she began to shiver again, body shaking uncontrollably. Bucky slid an arm around her waist and stood them up, supporting her weight entirely. 

“Cape.” Bucky demanded, not looking at Thor as he stuck out the arm that wasn't holding Darcy. The blond, unseen by Bucky, blinked at him but unsnapped the lapels of his armour and placed the thick red cloak into the other man's hand.

Bucky shook it out and wrapped it around the petite girl, swathing her in it before scooping her into his arms carefully. He turned back to Thor, who wisely said nothing as Darcy laid her head against the other man's shoulder. 

“Let’s go home.”

\--------

Darcy fell asleep in Bucky’s arms, exhausted and even paler than she usually was. He cradled her to him, her small frame still swathed in the deep red cloak and he sat in the back of the carriage as Thor took up the reins once more and lashed the horses into a fast pace, headed back to the tower. 

She stirred slightly as they neared home, her eyelids fluttering as she came to. Bucky stared down at her, noticing how the stars hung in the night sky overhead reflected in the blue of the girl’s eyes, bilinking back up at him. 

“Nearly time to get up, princess,” he said softly, so that Thor couldn’t hear him. The girl wrinkled her nose, and put one hand to her forehead, wincing as she did so. 

“M’not a princess,” she mumbled, and struggled slightly in his arms in a way that let Bucky know she wanted to sit up. He pulled her to him and righted her, so that she was sat on one thigh. He kept one arm curled around her protectively. 

“That’s not what you keep telling me,” he offered, in a weak attempt at a joke. 

“Yeah, well,” she replied, her porcelain cheeks flushing a deep pink that even Bucky realised wasn’t related to the chill in the night air. “A bump on the head apparently has me all over the show.”

Bucky felt a tight sensation somewhere in the depths of his chest at her words. 

She was only saying all the things that he’d said already, had repeated to Natasha, Steve and indeed himself several times over, yet here she was in his arms and rescued - properly, this time, he felt - by himself; and now he felt that these were the very last things that he wanted to hear from her. 

He squeezed his eyes shut briefly, and unwittingly closed his grip on her as well, clutching her tightly in a way that elicited a small squeak of surprise from the girl. 

“I’m sorry,” Bucky said instantly, eyes opening and looking down at her. He found his gaze flickering over her face, those big blue eyes and deep red lips that stood out stark against the pale ice white of her skin. His breath stoppered as he looked. 

“I’m - sorry,” he repeated, and - without knowing quite what he was doing - hesitantly pressed his lips against hers, lighter than the softest touch and expecting to feel the heel of her hand across his cheek - or worse. Instead what he felt was a tentative push back, the sensation of her lips tangling with his, and then the feel of her hand on his face. 

The kiss deepened, and Bucky was lost. He’d had no plan when he’d started, and he was drifting out to sea without a paddle as the girl pressed herself further against him. And yet, his body remembered the dance that they were playing at, hands tightened around her and his mouth fell into place with hers, opening and his tongue sliding over hers in a delicious twist that had his heart thumping hard. 

She broke back, panting slightly, her hand still laid against his face and her nose brushing the end of his. Bucky’s words escaped him, could not find it in himself to apologise nor to ask for more. Darcy solved the conundrum by kissing him lightly again, then pulling back to grace him with a shy smile as she pushed a hand back through her tangled hair. 

“Don’t apologise for that,” she said lightly. “If that’s the service you provide when rescuing a girl, then you’ll have a waiting list.”

“I don’t want a waiting list,” Bucky said honestly, his thumb drawing little circles on her upper arm, a subconscious movement that he was all but unaware of making. “I just… I just want you.”

“You didn’t,” Darcy replied in a low voice, her eyes dropping a little. “You didn’t want to-”

“I was scared,” Bucky interrupted. “I still am, scared. I thought I was doing the right thing keeping away from people, and maybe that still is the right thing, I’m hardly the hero of anyone’s story. But you…”

He trailed off, and sighed. Darcy looked back at him, and waited. 

“You were so insistent about me being…” Bucky broke off again, and ran a frustrated hand through his shaggy hair. “Being good. And I hated it, hated being reminded of something that I’m not, that I can’t be. But somehow… Somehow you also make me want to be that good man.”

Bucky huffed, tilting his head down and away from the girl on his lap, though his arms still wound around her, the cape tucked carefully around her body. Darcy put two fingers to his chin and lifted it back up, guiding him back to her. 

“I think you’re a good man, James Barnes,” Darcy said simply. “For lots of reasons, the least of which being that you’ve saved me twice now.” 

She grinned then, a little smile that dripped with mischief. 

“Though the way you kiss tells me not all of you is entirely good,” her eyes flickered across his lips before trailing up to meet his eyes again. “And I’m not complaining about that.”

Bucky laughed, a little huff that puffed out warm breath and dishevelled some of his hair and hers, where their heads were bent so closely together. 

“Perhaps I can be both,” he said into her ear, cautious and with not a small amount of hope lacing through his words as he spoke. 

“Perhaps you can,” she answered, and pressed her mouth to his once more.


End file.
